Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1887-04-14
HUSBAND AND WIFE
NO LONGER IN THE LAWS EYES
But two Persons, With Separate
Rights and Liabilities.
A Very Radical Change Made by Last
Winters Legislature.
The old FeudaI Idea of a Wife's In
feriority Exploded, and She is
Placed on Equal Footing
With her Husband.


Rlaced on Equal Footing
With her Husband.
Especial dispatch to the Enquirer.
COLUMBUS, o., April 6.-Among the
laws passed by the late Legislature was
one, formulated and long and persistent
ly pushed by Mr.. j. NJ. Williams, OF
Coshocton, which makes
A MOST RADICAL CHANGE
in pre-existing statutes, and which,
while of the greatest to married and un-
married women, is none the less inter-
eesting to who are married, or who con-
template marriage.
This is the act defining the rights and
liabilities of married women.
1t completely revolutionizes the i'm
memorial laws and practices in relation
to the status of married women, and
relegates to the realm Of obscuritv, so
far as Ohio is concerned, a score or more
of the most elaborate, complicated and
profound books on law, over which
COURTS, ATTORNEYS AND CLIENTS
have pored and wrangled ever since the
State Courts were opened.
L shall endeavor briefly to explain
the nature and extent of the revolution
wrought by the Williams statute.
AT common law-which, with few
statutory notifications, has heretofore
been the law of Ohio relative to women
"a married woman was a practical
nonentity, and was placed in the cate
CORY of infants, and with fewer rights
so far as the control Of her property
was concerned.
The common law regarded the man
as feudal lord of the manor, and the
wife as the mere serf of her husband.
She possessed no rights independent
OF him and and could do nothing with
out his permission; albeit, it is fire.
quently the case that the
MARE is THE BETTER HORSE.
She could not convey her separate
real estate without her husband joining
her.
Nor could she mortgage her separate
real estate without the consent of her
husband and his conjoint signature to
the instrument.
The same was true as to leasing her
own property until slight concession
was made and she was graciously per-
mitted to lease it for period not ex-
ceeding three years. ~Ita
All her personal belongings became
the absolute property of her husband
whenever he chose to assert his over
ship. fr 7,
When the husband died intestate the
wife was entitled to two-thirds of all
his personal property not exceeding
$4OO, and oi1e-thsrd of the remainder,
and was entitled life estate in one
third of the realty he left, subject to
forfeiture by marriage + NJ
When the wife died, the husband be-
ing already possessed of such personal
property as she might have brought
him, became the tenant by courtesy of
her real estate. In other words, he sue
ceeded to life interest in all of her real
estate, and could marry 1Htk
- THE DAY OF THE FUNERAL
with impunity, if he chose, and could
turn his first wife's children out Ofl
doors to make room for the seconds.
Ifa man married woman who owed
some one else for her board and clothes. |
he became responsible for the debt, and |
had to pay the milliner's billsand every
thing else.
A married woman was made respou-
sible for the worthless husbands debts |
under certain circumstances.
If @ man was so unfortunate as To |
marry termagant, whose venomous
tongue kept the whole neighborhood |
in an uproar, he could be mulct for ev-
cry time she slandered q neighbor.
He was pecuniarly responsible for |
every tort committed by his wife.
If she flung q brick through o
plate-glass window he had to nav for II.
although he had made every possible
endeavor to prevent her. ..
He might be as meek as Moses and as
tenderas
A POLITICIANS CONSCIENCE
is not; in short, man who would not
murder an angle-worm by putting it on
d fish-hook, and yet be called upon to
pay punitive damages because his wife
scalded the cuticle off a neighbours mis-
chievous urchin.
These are but few of the absurdities
under the old feudal idea of the inn
mense superiority of .the husband and
the infinite inferiority of the wife.
The law, as laid down by the learned
decisions of the Courts, and which an
piled to the husband had little or no
application to the wife, and vice versa.
There was one set Of nine law books.
written with infinite profunditv, touch
ing the rights ofa husband, whole vol
umes being devoted to "courtesyu or
the rights of the husband to eniov the
proceeds of his deceased wife's real
estate during the whole period of nat
ural existence.
Then there was another set of equally
PROFOUND AND pRoLIx BOOKS,
explaining the rights of woman during
coverture and after her husbands de.
cease, the question of dover and the
like. ''' WV
But under the Williams law this
whole business is brought up with a
round turn. "
Bishop and lot more of the com
mentators on coverture will 90 out of :
date to become lego-literary curiosities ,,
like the ancient English formula Of the {
woman charged with marital infidelitv
riding black sheep of the masculine
gender into Court, rhyming herself q
.trumpct and begging the Court to take
from her the dover rights she possessed !.
IN her husbands realty, and which fhe !
Iegolaureate denominated
HER CR1NKUM-CRANKUM." \
20 as to make it rhyme with "kinkum- s
lankum,n h
Hereafter, in the State of Ohio, mar b